Swinging
by finkpishnets
Summary: Oneshot. Ice cream, bickering and outbursts. What more could you expect? Ron/Hermione.


A/N: Well, turns out Hermione/Ron fluff is just the most fun thing to write. This is just a little piece that came to ,e at work earlier and I decided it had to be written. Nothing fantastically original, but who cares when it comes to these two?

Disclaimer: I don't own them, I just like to play around with them…

"So, I was waiting for Ralph to finally get those case files sorted for me, and it turns out he still hadn't written them. Then Maclaggen wanted to talk to me…basically my day is sucking, how's yours going?" Harry Potter asked his best friend Ron Weasley as they sat under a large umbrella at a table in Diagon Alley eating ice creams.

"Mine's not going to badly actually; I got out of going to that stupid hearing and made Phipps go instead, and I finished all my paperwork for the weekend." Ron slouched back in his chair, licking his spoon clean and depositing it back into his empty glass. Both Ron and Harry worked for the Ministry of Magic as Aurors, and were exceedingly good at their jobs. Unfortunately having only being two years out of Hogwarts (even though they had defeated the darkest wizard of all time) still only qualified them as trainees and they had yet to be given any real missions, and consequently had yet to get to work together on a case.

At that moment a large bag was dropped on the table and the pair, startled, looked up into the face of their other best friend Hermione Granger who was huffing and mumbling under her breath – it didn't take a genius to work out that she was not in the best of moods.

"Um, hey 'Mione," Harry said, casting a look at Ron.

"Oh, hello Harry, Ron, how are you both?" without waiting for an answer she continued, "I have had the worst morning; first I get called in to see Maclaggen about how 'the house-elf's are just not cooperating and we should give up a project that is wasting hundreds', and then Lavender being the absolute bimbo that she is decided she wanted to give me a make-over – as if my life isn't hectic enough – and drops all of this…this…powder all over my desk which happened to have the paperwork needed for the next Ministry convention about the mistreatment of werewolves and hinkypuffs, and then, Mr Burke – the fifty eight year old man that works in the office next to me – asked me to go to a swingers party with him!"

Harry snorted loudly into the lemonade he had just taken a sip out of ending up spitting a load out all over the table. He proceeded to laugh extremely loudly which only caused Hermione to turn red and Ron to look between them in confusion.

"What's a swingers party?" he asked the laughing Harry and the mortified Hermione.

"It doesn't matter," Hermione replied at the same time as Harry began "It's a party where you go and have sex with lots of different people." Hermione seemed to want the ground to swallow her whole and shot a glare at the still roaring Harry.

"What!" Ron spluttered, his ears beginning to turn the same colour as his hair.

"Well, it's all rather disgusting if you ask me," Hermione said snobbishly, obviously trying to regain some dignity.

"Ah, come on Mione, I bet it would be fun," Harry teased, tears now running down his face.

"That's just...just…well, it's just plain not something that people should be asking Hermione to do," Ron told them, still very red-faced.

"And why not!" Hermione suddenly demanded, obviously taking his words as an insult.

"Well, because, you're just not the kind of person to, well, to have sex," he told her, now looking like he wanted his mouth to stop saying things his brain had no control over. Harry couldn't help but find the entire thing uproariously amusing and let them know that through his guffaws that were attracting a lot of attention from neighbouring tables.

"I could have sex if I wanted to Ronald! There are lots of people that would want to sleep with me," Hermione told him looking furious, her eyes glinting dangerously and her arms crossed in front of her dark blue work robes.

"Oh yeah, name some," Ron countered, really not taking up the initiative and stopping this argument (which many people were over hearing) before something bad happened.

"Well, there's Ernie, and Neville and Dean, and Fred…"

"FRED! As in my brother Fred!" Ron shouted and Hermione instantly cringed, realising her mistake.

"Yes your brother Fred; he asked me out a couple of months ago, and before you say it, no it wasn't a joke! He said that he's realised that I'd grown up and that he found me very attractive and couldn't seem to keep his thoughts off of me. If you must know, he was very sweet about it all even when I said no."

Harry had stopped laughing and was now listening with intense curiosity; his friend's never ceased to be his main form of entertainment.

"Fred asked you out? But…but…"Ron stuttered, obviously flustered and amazed,

"But what? Spit it out Ronald," Hermione snapped in the same tone she used to use when she was trying to get them to stop making up excuses for why they hadn't done their homework.

"But Fred can't ask you out, you're mine!" Ron burst out. A few seconds passed as Ron's eyes widened considerably and Hermione didn't know whether to be shocked about what he'd said or angry that he had spoken about her as an object. Harry just sat their with bated breath realising that he (and everyone else) were currently entirely invisible to the pair. He had waited for 9 years for those two to finally get their act together and tell each other how they felt and now it may just come out into the open all because of a slip of the tongue.

"Yours?" Hermione asked quietly, her voice still edged with something dangerous but curious at the same time.

"W-well…You're my…I mean…you're my best friend," he finally stuttered. Harry rolled his eyes; apparently Ron wasn't going to be the one to initiate anything, it was up to Hermione now.

"Well, Harry here's my best friend too – does that mean I belong to him as well?" she asked angrily, obviously not pleased with Ron's given conclusion of the outburst. Harry hated it when he was brought into their arguments.

"No! Look, let's just forget it," Ron mumbled, taking great interest in his empty ice cream glass.

"Fine!" Hermione huffed, slouching backwards. It was amazing that she had given in so easily, about as amazing as the fact that Ron had stopped the argument and hadn't said something extremely stupid that would have just caused them to bicker over something else. Still, in spite of all that Harry was not in the least pleased. However amusing their arguments could be (one great example that he could never forget was the time they fought over which was better; muggle cat food or owl treats. It had ended up with them stuck in bed for a week with stomach cramps after consuming vast amounts of the said pet food to try and prove which tasted the nicest) he would rather it if they'd just finally come to realise what everyone else had realised during their third year.

"Oh come on you two, just admit that you are both crazy head over heels in love with each other; that is why you wouldn't go out with Fred, Hermione, and that is why you do not want her to go out with Fred, Ron. You have obviously been on love for too many years to count and it would be great if you could do us all a favour and finally get together!" Harry burst out. Oh, Ginny was going to kill him – she'd wanted them to get together on their own terms and not by anyone else's. Oh well, even she had to admit that it had been going on for way too long now.

Hermione and Ron were both gaping at their best friend looking remarkably like fish. Simultaneously they started spluttering out words of contradiction but Harry cut across them. "I don't want to hear you deny it when we all know how true it is. Look, I'm going to go and see if Ginny's got off for lunch yet. You guys stay." He stood up briskly and walked away as quickly as possible, only turning round once to make sure they hadn't both up and legged it. Luckily for them they were still sitting at the table looking extremely awkward and embarrassed.

Who says I don't do things for my friend's? Harry thought, smirking, as he made his way towards St Mungo's where Ginny was a healer.

Back at the table Ron and Hermione were avoiding eye contact and both looking as red as tomatoes. Hermione mentally scolded herself. She was supposed to be a mature working woman, and instead here she was all flustered like a school girl with a crush. She was neither a school girl, nor did she have a crush. No, it had long since passed when her feelings for Ron had changed, and now she was desperately, hopelessly in love with him.

Ron himself was currently trying to think up as many imaginative ways he could kill the 'Boy-Who-Lived' without getting himself a life sentence in Azkaban; threats on Harry's life were still taken very seriously. It wasn't as if what Harry was saying wasn't true – he had been in love with his best friend ever since the Yule Ball; actually, before that if he was perfectly honest, it was more like when she had been petrified in second year and he had felt so worried, wanting to stay with her at all times and make sure she was alright – but did Harry really need to go and embarrass him like that?

"So…" Hermione started having taken it upon herself to be the mature one.

"So…" Ron repeated, still not meeting her eyes.

"Nice weather we're having," Hermione stated in a strangely high pitched voice.

"Yeah, it'll make up for the cold winter we're bound to have," Ron replied conversationally.

They had been best friend's for nine years, had fought for their lives on several occasions, had faced Voldemort and were sitting here now talking about the weather? The ridiculousness of the situation did not pass by either of them as they started to giggle (or chuckle in a manly way where Ron was concerned).

"Harry was right you know," Hermione said after a few moments, speaking as though they were still talking about the years forecast.

"Yeah he was," Ron agreed. He looked up and caught her gaze, smiling slightly. "I do love you, have for bloody ages."

"I suppose I've always known that but I didn't want to say anything in case I just embarrassed myself horribly," Hermione continued, "Oh, and I love you too by the way."

"Harry and Ginny will be disappointed to know we didn't work it all out after some huge romantic revelation," Ron said, nodding his head, his face entirely straight.

"Yes, I suppose they would have wanted lots of poetry and floaty music and some dramatic stage kiss," Hermione agreed, looking just as serious.

"Well, we can't do the music, and I'm crap at poetry, but I suppose we could do the kiss…just so Harry and Ginny aren't disappointed," he reassured her.

"Yes, we can't really let them down now can we?" Hermione said as she moved over to sit in the chair which Harry had previously vacated which happened to be closer to Ron.

"It would be wrong to make them upset," Ron said quietly as his face moved closer to hers.

"Absolutely crushing," Hermione whispered as their lips became millimetres away from each other. Before Ron had a chance to add anything more to their tennis game of a random conversation, lips collided with lips as tingles of electricity ran down both of their spines. Nine years of pent up feelings and passion poured out into the simple action of skin against skin.

It was a hundred times better than arguing, Hermione thought dazedly as she moved her hands so that they were running through the strands of bright red hair at the back of Ron's neck. She didn't have to hear any spiteful remarks while his ears still went that adorable shade of red that she loved so much.

"By the way Mione," Ron whispered into her ear as he kissed her neck, "you're not going to that swingers party. The only person your going to be sleeping with for a while is me."


End file.
